


quieting down

by Anonymous



Series: the knismollymauk agenda [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Tickling, platonic intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29639868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Molly appears next to her a moment later. "Hello," he says."Hi," says Yasha. She pulls him into her lap. He goes willingly. "I need to wear you out a bit."Molly wiggles around, making himself comfortable. "Yasha, dear, I'm flattered, really, but I'm quite sure I'm not your type -eek-!"
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha
Series: the knismollymauk agenda [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178735
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57
Collections: Anonymous





	quieting down

**Author's Note:**

> somehow this came out both tooth-rottingly sweet and absolutely brutal. WITH THANKS TO [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29585943) for inspiration, it was published when i was halfway through writing this one and this sort of turned into a prequel
> 
> catch me on [tumblr](http://ticklishnonsense.tumblr.com), requests are always welcome

“Yasha,” says Gustav, in his tired-dad tone, “could you go take care of that?”

“Hmm?” Yasha opens her eyes and follows his gaze. "Oh."

She's already half-dozing, folded in her bedroll. The carnival does travel with individual tents, for when they set up somewhere for a while, but when they're on the road, they usually just put up a big one each night and spread out all their blankets on the floor together. Yasha always feels comforted by having people all around her, but it does mean they tend to be in each other's space a lot.

Now, for example, Molly is chattering away to Desmond on the other side of the tent. Most of the lanterns are out. In what dim golden light there is in the warm tent, Yasha can see that the Knot Sisters and Toya are already trying to sleep, though none of them seem to have managed it yet. Desmond is hiding yawns as Molly, who either doesn't notice or doesn't care, keeps talking a mile a minute.

Talking didn’t come quickly to Molly. But when it finally did, it was a flood. Yasha, who had befriended him when they were the two quietest members of the Circus, had been somewhat nonplussed to find herself the best friend of a social butterfly. But she loves Molly like this too, a colorful little problem-causer. Is he little? He's probably normally sized, actually. Almost everyone seems small to Yasha.

"Please," says Gustav. He’s sitting up on his own bedroll, with a ledger open and a lantern going in front of him. He looks tired.

"Oh. Yes." Yasha sits up, yawns, and cracks her knuckles. She calls across the tent, "Alright, Molly, c'mere."

Molly appears next to her a moment later. "Hello," he says.

"Hi," says Yasha. She pulls him into her lap. He goes willingly. "I need to wear you out a bit."

Molly wiggles around, making himself comfortable. "Yasha, dear, I'm flattered, really, but I'm quite sure I'm not your type -  _ eek-!" _

She smiles a little and squeezes at his side again. "Hmm?"

Before he can respond, she loops one arm under his and wraps it around his chest, hugging him close to her. Yasha is still kind of sleepy, so she gets her hand under his shirt and tickles gently from one side to the other and then back, finding zigzag patterns over his tummy. The warm skin under her hands is already quivering with his bitten-off giggles, and she really wants to coax out more. This isn't the first time she's set about tickling the mischief out of Molly, so she knows the spots that make him jump: the sides of his abs, the dips just beneath his ribs.

He's jumpy today. When Yasha moves down to squeeze up and down his thigh, he breaks into laughter, twisting fruitlessly in her grip. "Hahahah - Yasha,  _ no _ \- ahah - babe, that's not  _ fair-" _

"Shouldn't be long," Yasha tells Gustav. She scritches around and under Molly's knee, and he kicks out his leg into her blankets with a frantic whine. "Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes?"

"As long as you need," says Gustav, and then lets out an enormous yawn. "Well, not too long. But I'm fine with listening to him get his comeuppance for a bit."

"Mmfh - pfahah - hah -  _ Yasha-" _

She feels alright, with a lapful of squirming tiefling. Yasha doesn’t feel alright that often, so she treasures contentment where it comes. She nuzzles into Molly's shoulder. He snickers at that too, and she can't help but mirror his smile. She works her fingers into the dip between his thigh and hip, and holds him snug as he tries ineffectually to kick his way free between cackles.

A few bedrolls away, Toya is sitting up and watching. She giggles and announces, "Molly's ticklish."

"If you aren't good, I'll have to do this to you too," Yasha warns her, as she curls her fingers around Molly’s hip.

Yasha has it on good authority that she's a pretty intimidating person, but Toya just giggles harder at the threat. Perhaps being mid-tickle fight does not lend one an air of dignity. Perhaps Yasha’s just getting soft. She certainly feels pretty soft, surrounded by dim lanterns and her dozing friends and a little girl who isn't scared of her at all and her best friend shaking with laughter in her lap.

Which, speaking of. "Give me that," Yasha says. She lets go of his chest and grabs his arm just above the elbow instead. She gets her other hand under his arm and wriggles her fingers into the hollows there.

She did know that this is one of Molly’s worst spots, but it’s still a surprise when Molly spasms so hard he actually manages to squirm out of her grip. He doesn’t go far - just tumbles out of her lap and slams his arms down around his sides. There’s a nervous smile flitting around his lips.

Yasha blinks at him. “Huh.”

“You,” says Mollymauk, breathless, “are  _ mean.” _

“Well, I’m not done,” she tells him, and grabs him by the scruff of his shirt like a naughty kitten to yank him back.

Yasha wouldn’t actually do this if he hated it. This  _ is _ her best friend, even when he’s a troublemaker. It’s just, Molly starts the tickle fights most of the time anyway, and he never seems to care if he wins or loses. (He does win occasionally, when he gets to Yasha’s ribs, when he’s trying to cheer her up.) And when he  _ is _ losing, she’s never heard him once ask to stop, even when the torment has him trying to crawl out of his own skin. And afterwards, he’s always all cuddly and blissed-out, so - Yasha’s pretty sure he enjoys it, the closeness and the laughter. And she likes making Molly happy.

Anyways, his eyes are still bright with mischief, so her job isn’t done.

Yasha spreads him over her lap facedown, swats his ass gently, and gets to work. She plants her elbow between his shoulderblades - not hard enough to hurt, but enough that he isn’t going anywhere - and takes a firm grip on his upper arm, holding it up. With her other hand, she digs her fingers into his underarm, tickling mercilessly.

Molly breaks down into laughter again immediately. Yasha’s fingers dance up the underside of his bicep, down his unprotected ribs. He’s kicking at the air, and she can feel him squirming under her forearm and tugging at her grip, but he’s not going anywhere. “Yasha -  _ ahahah  _ \- babe, this isn’t -  _ hhahah  _ \-  _ fair-” _

"Even if you weren't so ticklish, you're very easy to manhandle," Yasha tells him.

"Do I -  _ hhah  _ \- even  _ weigh  _ anything t-to you?!" Molly whines through his giggles.

"Nope, it's like holding a couple of grapes."

She pushes up his shirt to tickle a little over his bare lower back, which, now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t really tried before.

It’s not that Yasha’s expecting him  _ not _ to be ticklish on his back. Molly is kind of ticklish everywhere. But she isn’t expecting the full-body spasm, and the sudden screech. This is so surprising that Yasha actually stops. "What,  _ there?" _

“Yasha,” Molly rushes out, “we can talk about this-”

And then a flood of desperate laughter cuts off all his words.

“Huh,” says Yasha to herself, with her hand up the back of his shirt, fingers skittering over the exposed skin. She’s kind of surprised she hasn’t discovered this already. “Tickle, tickle, Mollymauk,” she murmurs to him, and then has to add, "Stay still. If you can't quiet down, I'll have to take you outside."

She tickles up his shoulders, around the base of his neck, and back down his spine. When she gets to the dips of his waist at his lower back, he  _ howls. _

Yasha sighs. "Here," she says, and grabs her pillow. She hands it to Molly, who buries his face in it immediately, and pins down his shoulders with her forearm so she can get back to work.

She gentles her touch to the lightest brush of her fingertips playing over the bare skin, and Molly thrashes violently against her arm pinning him down. There's all sorts of muffled shrieks coming from her lap, and his tail is whipping all over the place, as if that'll help. Yasha catches hold of it and tickles at the spade for a moment, and that  _ really _ makes him yell.

An idea strikes her. She draws his tail down towards his back, using the spade of Molly's own tail to tickle over his sides and lower back. His tail flicks involuntarily against his own skin, and when Yasha teases right around the base of the spade to make it move faster, she can hear absolutely anguished noises coming from her pillow.

“Don’t be a baby,” she tells him, hiding her smile.

_ “Yasha-” _ he gasps, removing his face from the pillow for a moment.  _ “Gonnakillme-” _

She lets go of his tail and really gets down to it, mining every inch of his back and sides for laughter. Molly slams his face back into her pillow as she counts up the backs of his ribs, and she feels goosebumps spring up wherever her fingers land. Amongst the stream of laughter, she catches some sobs and whines in there. Yasha drops a comforting kiss on one of Molly’s horns, and then goes right back to his torment.

Honestly, Yasha doesn't even notice his struggles starting to slow. She's so focused on extracting every last giggle from him that she misses it when he stops kicking at the air. The gradual quieting of his muffled laughter passes unnoticed as Yasha pinches gently all over his back and sides and ribs. She goes back to his underarms for a while, tickles all around his neck, wiggles her fingertips up and down the backs of his thighs, and only vaguely registers the fact that he isn’t really flailing anymore. She probably wouldn't have stopped tickling him at all if Gustav hadn't said,

"Oh, that's much better. Thank you, Yasha."

"Hmm?" Yasha looks up, follows his gaze down to the tiefling in her lap. "Oh."

Molly’s practically melted across her legs, with barely the energy to twitch and giggle as she tickles idly at his side here, his back there. She isn’t even really holding him down anymore. He’s just slumped there, limp and defenseless. For a moment, Yasha worries that she’s gone too far - but when she gently turns him over, he’s beaming up at her, warm and affectionate.

“Sleepy now?” she asks, smiling back. She reaches into her rucksack for a waterskin and passes it to him.

“’M exhausted, you monster,” Molly accuses her. He takes a long drink, passes the waterskin back, and then yawns enormously and nuzzles into her hip. She strokes his hair, and feels his chest start to rumble against her legs with a quiet purr.

Mollymauk is an irrepressibly snarky creature: quick with a comeback, rarely honest, nearly impossible to catch off-guard. It makes a little spot of golden warmth glow somewhere deep in Yasha’s heart, to see the open comfort and happiness on his face.

Most of the lanterns have been put out now, and with Molly finally quieted, Gustav writes for a few more minutes and then turns the little knob on his. Yasha’s vision shifts into greyscale.

To Molly, she says quietly, “I do have to sleep too, you know.”

There’s no response. When Yasha glances down, his eyes have fluttered shut. Huh. That must’ve worked even better than she thought.

She’ll have to carry him over to his own bedroll. But when she goes to pick him up, he mumbles something incoherent and presses his face closer into her hip.

“Hmm?”

“C’n sleep withyou?” Molly repeats.

And - well. It isn’t exactly a hard sell.

Yasha settles down onto her bedroll, and pulls the blanket over both of them. Molly shifts around, and scoots closer once she’s made herself comfortable on her back. He’s still purring a little bit, and he tucks himself into her side only half-consciously.

Surrounded by the warm bodies and steady breathing of the people who are family, Yasha closes her eyes and settles in to sleep.


End file.
